Todd Carter and the Buck “Old 22”

Author’s note: Todd Carter of Oldham County, Kentucky manages about 7,500 acres for wildlife and has one 800-acre farm he manages intensively. He’s been a PSE pro and also on the Mossy Oak Pro Staff.

We had three years of trail camera pictures of the buck “Old 22.” This buck was five years old, and during the early part of the season, our trail cameras revealed he already had been shot by another bowhunter and had an arrow sticking out of his back. We know no one on our property had shot this deer, so we assumed a hunter on the neighboring property had done it. To be honest, we thought Old 22 was dead, after we got the pictures of the arrow in his back. We didn’t get any more pictures of him and didn’t sight him when we were scouting. I was really surprised when I finally saw Old 22 again, since it was the first time anyone had spotted him, because he’d stopped appearing on the trail cameras.

On this particular day, I was near a water hole and spotted him at about 45 yards, headed toward the water. Old 22 had 12- or 13-inch tines, but his rack was really narrow. I could tell he had lost weight and wasn’t very healthy. Apparently the shaft of the arrow had broken off.

I let him come in about 20 yards from my tree stand and released my arrow from my PSE Evo. I was shooting a G5 broadhead. He only ran about 40 yards before he went down. We watched him fall.

He scored 180-3/8 points. We really wanted to take this deer, because we didn’t want him to die of his previous wounds. We know if we don’t get a good hit on a buck, we can’t assume that buck is dead until we find him. Old 22 had carried his arrow for a long time. No one likes to shoot a deer and not recover it, especially a trophy buck like Old 22, but it happens. So, anytime you see a wounded animal, take him if you possibly can, especially a really fine buck like Old 22.